Engines and Flywheels

Q: What did your dad do for a living?

A: Well dad he worked at the munitions at Coventry down Stoke Lane for the Humber people during the War that's how .. his native is here, he was a native of Ruddington. There was a very big family of them, about 17 brothers and they all was formed the Ruddington Village Church Choir see, but he was a twist hand in the Hosiery trade making socks and he worked in the last mobile, not mobile, mechanical stocking manufacturers owned by my uncle Mr. Frank Greenwood in Woodley Street what we used to call Back Street - it was never known as Woodley Street in those days it was called Back Street - and they had a big gas engine there with a great big fly wheel and I can see these machines today, they didn't make them round they used to make them flat see, and the bobbins used to run across like that and the shuttles used to run across like that.

Q: From side to side?

A: Aye, and great big pulleys with three inch leather belts floating around and if they'd have done it in these days the Factory Inspector would have cut them to pieces. I can see the old father when he used to have to make the machine immobile while he did something particular to it, like switching the electricity off, well they used to have to tek the belts off and if you get this brush handle and shove it in between the belts like that and twist the top like that, and then when he wanted it to go again he used to get the leather belt and sort of hook it on to the lower end of the cast iron pulley and follow it round till it went on (laugh) and that's how they used to get the old gas engine to start years ago (laugh) it used to go pop pop pop pop pop, that was the last one of the mechanised well, it was the only mechanised stockingers shop in the Village, the rest was all hand operated, which was Ruddington was infested by stockingers shops in those days.

Source: Nottingham Central Library Local History Section (Recording A13/a-b/3)